Twitter mistakenly suspended its own CEO’s Twitter account

Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey found his account on the micro-blogging site briefly suspended Tuesday. For about 30 minutes, starting 8:45 p.m. EST, his account status showed as “suspended.”

Dorsey’s account was restored about half hour later, and at 9:15 p.m. EST, he had around 200 followers. Eventually, all his 3.8 million followers on the social network were restored.

Dorsey later tweeted the suspension was an “internal mistake.” He even joked by posting his first tweet — “just setting up my twttr.”

- Advertisement -

The service has been slow to suspend people for hate speech and harassment in the past, but is usually quick to remove accounts that post obscene images or videos. Speculating entirely, it could be that Dorsey was the target of a hacking attempt, and his account was taken down to preemptively halt any kind of public performance, while Twitter worked to get it back into his hands.

Twitter generally suspends hacked accounts or those which have been flagged for sending abusive or spam tweets. The social network has been actively suspending accounts recently, including many accounts last week related to the white nationalist “alt-right” movement. The heads of various companies have suffered from hacking in the past. In August this year, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales’ Twitter account was hacked, while in April 2015, Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s account was hacked.

The company also issued new developer policies Tuesday prohibiting surveillance using the social network.

“We prohibit developers using the Public APIs and Gnip data products from allowing law enforcement — or any other entity — to use Twitter data for surveillance purposes. Period.” Chris Moody, general manager, Data & Enterprise Solutions, posted on the Twitter blog Tuesday.

He further added: “If developers violate our policies, we will take appropriate action, which can include suspension and termination of access to Twitter’s Public APIs and data products.”

Social-media accounts of tech executives are a ripe target for hackers. In July, both Mr. Dorsey’s Twitter and Vine accounts were compromised, and Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s accounts on both Twitter and Pinterest were hacked in June.